It is assumed that your have now on your shelves a supply of:
1st. Breakfast grains.
2nd. Whole wheat flour, and whole corn meal.
3rd. If you have not a small milling machine, you have made definite plans about your future supply of 100 per cent flours and meals.
4th. You have casseroles and a steamer. (Possibly even a fireless cooker.)
5th. You have in your minds a knowledge of acid goods and how to balance them. If you haven’t these, don’t you think you had better get them? You can’t start without the proper food supply and the proper utensils. Above all, don’t start in a haphazard way. Start right and the road will be easy.
BREAKFAST GRAINS
The entire wheat contains every element which the body needs. One hundred per cent Food Value.
The outer covering, including the bran and the brown layers next to the bran, contain the precious minerals and vitamins which are removed in milling white flour. Hence for:
Breakfast Wheat No. 1
Get the entire wheat grainunground. Cook in salted water for five or six hours in double boiler. In the morning heat the quantity desired for breakfast and serve with milk or thin cream.
Breakfast Wheat No. 2 Get what the millers call “cracked wheat.” Any miller who will sell you the whole grain will also sell this. In it the wheat is broken and therefore cooks quicker.
Some people have secured the same result by putting the whole grain through a nut grinder. Cook in a double boiler at least one hour. Serve with milk or thin cream. Corn Meal If you have succeeded in getting (or grinding) undenatured corn meal, prepare as follows: Sift the meal through the fingers slowly into the boiling water, stirring all the time to keep smooth. Cook for twenty minutes in a double boiler. Serve with thin cream.
Natural Brown Rice The best way to cook rice is directly over fire in broad shallow tin (as a milk pan). To 1 cup of brown rice add 4 cups of water and teaspoonful salt, bring to boiling point, turn down fire and allow to simmer exactly 35 minutes without stirring. Watch for the last 5 minutes and if necessary add 1 or 2 tablespoonfuls of water. This is rarely necessary.
Rice is made gummy and sticky by overcooking or stirring. If cooked and timed exactly as above each kernel should stand out separate and dry and thoroughly cooked.
Stick a fork straight down into it here and there during the last minute or two. Watch the bubbles and be sure that all the moisture is absorbed. Unabsorbed moisture will also make it sticky.
The above is the only successful and satisfactory way of cooking brown rice when it is to be served as a vegetable but if for your breakfast food you prefer to cook it in a double boiler, proportion as follows:
To 1 cup of brown rice add 2313 cups of water and teaspoonful salt. Cook in double boiler at simmering point exactly 1 hour without stirring. When done remove the cover at once. The steam will make it soggy.
Almost every cook book will direct you to cook rice in a large quantity of water and then drain and dry. Never do this. The liquid in which the brown rice is cooked is a valuable essence. It should be properly proportioned so that it can be absorbed by the rice.
If white (polished) rice is cooked directly over fire, it it should have four parts water to one part rice and cook for 20 minutes only. But we are not concerned here with the successful cooking of polished rice.
By oatmeal we do not mean rolled oats. We mean the old-fashioned coarse, steel-cut oatmeal.
This should be cooked at least two hours at night and warmed through in the morning.
Cooking it thus at night it continues to steam for a long time after the fire has been turned out.
Serve medium thick with thin cream.
Whole Wheat Griddle Cakes (Mrs. Wheeler) 2 cups of ( 100 per cent) whole wheat flour. 5 level teaspoonfuls of baking powder.1level teaspoonful of salt. 2 2/3, cups of milk. 2 eggs. 1 teaspoonful of molasses. 1st, mix the flour, baking powder and salt. 2nd, stir in the milk. 3rd, stir in the molasses (the molasses is not absolutely necessary, but it makes the cakes brown more easily). 4th, add the eggs, well beaten. 5th, mix thoroughly and bake on a hot, well greased griddle.
Whole Wheat and Corn Meal Griddle Cakes
(These cakes are delicious, but the corn meal must be 100 per cent. You can’t buy it at the grocers.Grind it.) 1 cup whole wheat flour. 1 cup (undenatured) corn meal. 1 level teaspoonful baking powder. level teaspoonful salt. 2 cups sour milk. level teaspoonful baking soda. 1 egg.
Buckwheat Cakes The buckwheat flour which is on the market is denatured, also.
If you can succeed in getting some of the whole grain and grind it yourself, what could be more delicious than a break-fast of buckwheat cakes?
Rice or Oatmeal Cakes
Griddle cakes can also be made from the leftovers of the rice or oatmeal porridge.